INTRODUCTION
When, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr.
When, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr.
James Russell Lowell
et SS.
Ante-Diluv.
ubiq.
Gent.
Soc.
Hon. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Diffus. General. Tenebr.
Secret. Corr.
INTRODUCTION
When, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr.
Biglow, came to me and submitted to my animadversions the first of his
poems which he intended to commit to the more hazardous trial of a city
newspaper, it never so much as entered my imagination to conceive that
his productions would ever be gathered into a fair volume, and ushered
into the august presence of the reading public by myself.
So little are we short-sighted mortals able to predict the event! I
confess that there is to me a quite new satisfaction in being associated
(though only as sleeping partner) in a book which can stand by itself in
an independent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is always
this drawback from the pleasure of printing a sermon, that, whereas the
queasy stomach of this generation will not bear a discourse long enough
to make a separate volume, those religious and godly-minded children
(those Samuels, if I may call them so) of the brain must at first be
buried in an undistinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as is
vouchsafed to them, mummy-wrapped with a score of others in a cheap
binding, with no other mark of distinction than the word
'_Miscellaneous_' printed upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any
credit for the quite unexpected popularity which I am pleased to find
these bucolic strains have attained unto. If I know myself, I am
measurably free from the itch of vanity; yet I may be allowed to say
that I was not backward to recognize in them a certain wild, puckery,
acidulous (sometimes even verging toward that point which, in our rustic
phrase, is termed _shut-eyed_) flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor
unwholesome, to palates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and
cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and
there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my
larger experience of literature and authorship. [9]
I was at first inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's attempts, as knowing
that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally incident to
adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and with a
bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who might else
have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a painful
object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a further
experience that there was a germ of promise in him which required only
culture and the pulling up of weeds from about it, I thought it best to
set before him the acknowledged examples of English composition in
verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, I
accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to the
assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not long
afterward, he brought me some verses written upon that model, a specimen
of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less elegancy, and a
few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted of
childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will not seem
destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in a country
village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of the
school-dame.
'Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see
The humble school-house of my A, B, C,
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire,
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire,
Then all together, when the signal came,
Discharged their _a-b abs_ against the dame.
Hon. et Civit. Cleric. Jaalam. et S. pro Diffus. General. Tenebr.
Secret. Corr.
INTRODUCTION
When, more than three years ago, my talented young parishioner, Mr.
Biglow, came to me and submitted to my animadversions the first of his
poems which he intended to commit to the more hazardous trial of a city
newspaper, it never so much as entered my imagination to conceive that
his productions would ever be gathered into a fair volume, and ushered
into the august presence of the reading public by myself.
So little are we short-sighted mortals able to predict the event! I
confess that there is to me a quite new satisfaction in being associated
(though only as sleeping partner) in a book which can stand by itself in
an independent unity on the shelves of libraries. For there is always
this drawback from the pleasure of printing a sermon, that, whereas the
queasy stomach of this generation will not bear a discourse long enough
to make a separate volume, those religious and godly-minded children
(those Samuels, if I may call them so) of the brain must at first be
buried in an undistinguished heap, and then get such resurrection as is
vouchsafed to them, mummy-wrapped with a score of others in a cheap
binding, with no other mark of distinction than the word
'_Miscellaneous_' printed upon the back. Far be it from me to claim any
credit for the quite unexpected popularity which I am pleased to find
these bucolic strains have attained unto. If I know myself, I am
measurably free from the itch of vanity; yet I may be allowed to say
that I was not backward to recognize in them a certain wild, puckery,
acidulous (sometimes even verging toward that point which, in our rustic
phrase, is termed _shut-eyed_) flavor, not wholly unpleasing, nor
unwholesome, to palates cloyed with the sugariness of tamed and
cultivated fruit. It may be, also, that some touches of my own, here and
there, may have led to their wider acceptance, albeit solely from my
larger experience of literature and authorship. [9]
I was at first inclined to discourage Mr. Biglow's attempts, as knowing
that the desire to poetize is one of the diseases naturally incident to
adolescence, which, if the fitting remedies be not at once and with a
bold hand applied, may become chronic, and render one, who might else
have become in due time an ornament of the social circle, a painful
object even to nearest friends and relatives. But thinking, on a further
experience that there was a germ of promise in him which required only
culture and the pulling up of weeds from about it, I thought it best to
set before him the acknowledged examples of English composition in
verse, and leave the rest to natural emulation. With this view, I
accordingly lent him some volumes of Pope and Goldsmith, to the
assiduous study of which he promised to devote his evenings. Not long
afterward, he brought me some verses written upon that model, a specimen
of which I subjoin, having changed some phrases of less elegancy, and a
few rhymes objectionable to the cultivated ear. The poem consisted of
childish reminiscences, and the sketches which follow will not seem
destitute of truth to those whose fortunate education began in a country
village. And, first, let us hang up his charcoal portrait of the
school-dame.
'Propped on the marsh, a dwelling now, I see
The humble school-house of my A, B, C,
Where well-drilled urchins, each behind his tire,
Waited in ranks the wished command to fire,
Then all together, when the signal came,
Discharged their _a-b abs_ against the dame.
